Immersion condensation on scalable oil-infused nanostructures for high performance thermal management

Enhancing condensation heat transfer is important for broad applications ranging from power generation to thermal management. Significant efforts have focused on easy removal of the condensate, yet the other desired properties of low contact angles and high nucleation densities for high heat transfer performance have been typically neglected. In this work, we demonstrate immersion condensation on scalable oil-infused copper oxide nanostructures with heterogeneous coatings, where water droplets nucleate immersed within the oil. The combination of surface energy heterogeneity, reduced oil-water interfacial energy, and surface structuring enabled a drastically increased nucleation density while maintaining easy condensate removal. Accordingly, we demonstrated approximately a 100% increase in heat transfer coefficient compared to state-of-the-art dropwise condensation surfaces in the presence of non-condensable gases. Such surfaces promise wide application in a variety of heat transfer and resource conserving systems.